Israel Matzav

Monday, March 31, 2008

76% of Israelis favor 'transfer'

A survey finds that 76% of Israelis favor 'transferring' 'Israeli Arabs' to a 'Palestinian statereichlet if one is ever established. Kahane favored 'transferring' Arabs out of Israel to Arab countries, but never envisioned a 'Palestinian' reichlet. The poll was commissioned by the Knesset Channel.

The poll, conducted over the internet, included 668 adult Israelis representing the entire political spectrum, cites a 3.7% margin of error.

The poll asked participants whether as part of an agreement to establish a Palestinian state there would be justification to demand that Arabs with Israeli citizenship relocate to Palestinian territory.

Only 24% were totally against the idea.

Of the remaining 76%, 29% said all Israeli Arabs should relocate. An additional 19% said only Arabs living in close proximity to the Palestinian state should relocate, and 28% said transfer should be decided based on loyalty or disloyalty to the State of Israel.

The data reflects Jewish Israelis' distrust of Arabs national priorities. 50% said Arabs identify first and foremost with the Palestinian cause and see their Israeli loyalty as secondary. 40% said Arabs identify solely with Palestinians, and only a single percent thought Arabs identify wholly with their Israeli identity.

Notwithstanding their belief that Arabs' right to retain their property was not obvious, 52% thought Israeli Arabs were not discriminated against by the state. 43% said they were discriminated against and one percent remained undecided.

Approximately 20% of Israel's population is Arab and my guess is that nearly all of them don't want to be transferred to a 'Palestinian' reichlet. For example, see this. In fact, Arab MK's are upset that the poll was taken in the first place.

Hadash Chairman MK Muhammad Barakei was furious that the Knesset Channel initiated such a poll.

"The Knesset Channel should express Israeli democracy and cannot act as a private company advancing insane and racist ideology," he said.

Barakei said that "even if 90 MKs would decide the channel has no right to express such ideas, it would still have such a right. Some things are not decided by a majority and minority [referendum or vote], and the right to exist or to express oneself freely are among those privileges. The channel failed colossally by merely raising such a question, and it is appropriate that those in control of the channel would reprimand it, without limiting its freedom of expression.

Barakei and other Arab MKs joined Jaffa's Arabs in events commemorating Land Day over the weekend, where demonstrators hoisted Palestinian flags and described Israel as a "racist and fascist" state.

If they really believe we're a racist, fascist state, why would they want to be part of the State of Israel?

For those who have forgotten, here's a video of a 1984 debate on ABC's Nightline between Rabbi Meir Kahane and current Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert. Who do you think was right?

PA accuses US of undermining Arab summit

Saturday's al-Hayat al-Jadida, one of the 'Palestinian Authority's 'official' newspapers, carried the cartoon at the top of this post in which the 'Palestinian Authority' accuses the United States of undermining this past weekend's Arab summit in Damascus. Palestinian Media Watch explains.

The Palestinian Authority continues to accuse the United States of intentionally undermining and destabilizing the Arab world.

A cartoon in the official PA daily newspaper, Al Hayat-Al Jadida, shows the U.S. pulling away the crutch from an amputee struggling trying to walk towards the Arab Summit in Damascus. The message is that the U.S. continues to prevent the already weak Arab world from coming together and gaining strength.

The PA joins Syria in blaming the U.S. for the fact that the leaders of Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan boycotted the weekend summit.

Someone please remind me why the Bush administration continues to insist that the 'good terrorists' of Fatah are America's friends.

"In the past, the Palestinian leadership managed to reach the Mecca agreement [with Hamas in February 2007] as a way to end the blockade on the Gaza Strip and unite the Palestinians," Abbas said. "In spite of this, Hamas carried out its military coup [in June 2007], which posed new challenges to us. The coup has split the Palestinian homeland and given Israel a weapon for political blackmail."

Abbas said the PA was continuing to channel funds to the Gaza Strip despite the Hamas takeover, and that 58 percent of its budget went there in the past year.

The PA was paying salaries to some 77,000 employees in the Gaza Strip, as compared to 73,000 in the West Bank, he said. The PA had also exempted the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from paying taxes and health fees, Abbas said.

The PA president accused Israel of "brutal" attacks on the Gaza Strip over the past few months aimed at splitting the area from the West Bank.

"This Israeli policy is designed to show that peace can't be achieved because the Palestinians are divided," he said. "A just peace can't be achieved unless Israel withdraws from all the Palestinian and Arab territories, a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is established and the problem of the refugees is solved."

Abbas warned that failure to achieve these goals by the end of the year would increase tensions in the region and undermine the credibility of the peace process. He also expressed full support for the Arab peace initiative of 2002 and called on the rest of the Arab world to endorse it.

Does anyone really believe that this kind of indoctrination of children will stop if we make 'peace' with Fatah?

Shas says 'jump' and Olmert asks 'how high?'

Desperate to keep the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in his coalition, Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert promised the Sephardic party on Monday afternoon that he would permit the construction of eight hundred new housing units in the Judean town of Beitar Ilit just hours after their Ashkenazic counterparts at UTJ had told them to build in Beitar Ilit or leave the government.

United Torah Judaism's six MKs, who were joined by settlement leaders such as mayor of Ma'aleh Adumim and former head of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip Benny Kashriel, called on Shas, the Sephardi haredi coalition member, to issue an ultimatum: lift the freeze on building in the Gush Etzion settlement or leave the government.

"If Shas were to demand today that building should resume in Betar it would happen," said UTJ chairman Ya'acov Litzman.

A Shas spokesman said in response that building in and around Jerusalem was "very important to Shas."

Under US pressure, the government has frozen construction on some 1,200 units in Betar Illit, a city of 35,000 and the fastest-growing town beyond the Green Line. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is presently in Israel to facilitate negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and she sees Jewish settlement construction in places like Betar Illit as a major obstacle to the peace process. Meanwhile, on Monday, Shas Chairman Eli Yishai is slated to lead his 12-member faction in a tour of Betar Illit. He is expected to make a declaration about his party's commitment to building in the haredi city. But it is unclear whether Shas will threaten to leave the coalition over Betar Illit. Mayor Meir Rubinstein likened the freeze on building beyond the Green Line to "strangulation."

"This government is strangling us," said Rubinstein, who belongs to the Breslav hassidic sect.

"It is simply impossible to stop the building in places like Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Efrat and Givat Ze'ev," added Rubinstein. "We met here today to cry out to the government to allow the building to continue." MK Avraham Ravitz (UTJ) called for pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

"Olmert is not ideologically opposed to settlements," said Ravitz.

"We have to bring him to the point where he will be forced to tell Rice, 'I'm under too much pressure. I can't stop building.'"

Even Litzman, who normally avoids commenting on territorial issues, pointed out that the Torah sages who advise UTJ on political issues oppose the building freeze.

Asked if he was concerned that pushing to build in Betar Illit would hurt Israel's relations with the US, Litzman answered, "Rice is in favor of dividing Jerusalem. But the Torah sages are against it. We are not trying to arouse the anger of the US, we're just listening to our rabbis."

In a move viewed by many as an effort to ensure Shas remains in his coalition, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Monday that the construction of 800 new housing units in Betar Illit would be approved.

...

"We don't hide our views on Jerusalem and major settlement blocs, we are being honest about everything throughout the negotiations," he added.

The prime minister dismissed reports that new settlements were being built. "We are not building new settlements, everyone must understand this. However, Betar Illit, for example is not a settlement."

I wonder whether Condi and the 'Palestinians' would agree with that. Somehow, I doubt they would.

Even Olmert must realize by now that there is no compromise with the 'Palestinians.' They want it all. Olmert and his foreign minister can go on continuing to pretend that the 'Palestinians' will settle for less than everything, but if they really believe that, they are fooling themselves. Do Olmert and Livni really believe the 'Palestinians' will settle for less than everything? Probably not. So why are they continuing the charade of a 'peace process' and risking Israelis' lives? Because the alternative is to tell Israelis the truth: that we cannot make 'peace' with the 'Palestinians' for the foreseeable future. And if Israelis heard that, they might remember the Winograd Report again, and that might mean bye, bye Ehud, Ehud and Tzipi.

Sky News interviews Khaled Meshaal

Give Sky News' Tim Marshall credit. He tried. He really did.

Marshall went to Damascus where he interviewed Hamas politburo leader Khaled Meshaal on Sunday night. The interview is below. Sky also has a news story and Marshall has a blog post about the interview. Watch the interview, read the news story and the blog post and then I'll have a few points for you. The actual interview was much better done than either of the written posts. The full text of the interview is here, but most of it is in the videotape.

You'll note that in the interview, Marshall doesn't let him get away with too much. If Marshall were an Israeli, perhaps he would have thought to ask Meshaal what he means by 'occupation' (Hamas considers all of Israel occupied including lands liberated in 1948. Then again, so does Fatah) and what he means by civilians (both Hamas and Fatah define civilians to include all revenants and all Israeli reserve soldiers - most of the country between the ages of 18-45 - whether or not they are in uniform). Marshall accuses Meshaal of targeting children but doesn't really follow up on the accusation when Meshaal denies it. Meshaal has the audacity to ask for more accurate weapons with which he claims Hamas will no longer hit schools! Yeah, sure. But Marshall doesn't follow up on the subject.

The Hamas leader appeared to question the opinion of the respected Holocaust historians.

"We don't deny the Holocaust, but we believe the Holocaust, was exaggerated by the Zionist movement to whip people," he said.

"We don't deny the fact but we don't accept two issues. We don't accept the exaggerating of numbers and we don't accept that Israel uses this to do what it wants."

Those comments will infuriate Israel and Jews around the world but the Israeli government may also want clarification on the offer not to target civilians.

A deal is unlikely but it could be a way forward to a truce on Hamas suicide bombings.

Marshall seems to miss that Meshaal is effectively denying the Holocaust. Then again, much of the world has missed that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen said the same thing that Meshaal said.

On the so-called truce, there is an almost wall-to-wall consensus in Israel that there are no 'truces' with Hamas. For Hamas, a truce is an opportunity to regroup and come back at us harder. Even though the Olmert-Barak-Livni government is not willing to do what needs to be done - go into Gaza and clean out the nests of vipers - everyone agrees that the pressure must be kept up on Hamas and that it will use any lull to smuggle in more fighters and weapons under the watchful eyes of the Egyptians.

In his blog post, Marshall says the following:

Thousands had died and each year there was less and less Palestinian land to fight for. Put a map of Palestine in 1948 on a table. Then place a transparent map of what they have left in 2008 and you see the extent of the Palestinian defeat. Hamas says my logic is wrong but of course neither of us knows who is right.

Fatah is now taking the line of salvaging what they can. But Hamas fight on and when you look Khalid Mashaal in the eye, you know why. He is a true believing revolutionary who could easily have coined the phrase 'By Any Means Necessary' had not Malcolm X got there first. Of course, the Israelis and most Western governments believe him to be a terrorist.

Marshall is wrong. He knows very well who is right and it's not Meshaal. If the 'Palestinians' were - God forbid - to win tomorrow, it would still have cost thousands of unnecessary deaths because Israel has been trying to negotiate a 'settlement' with the Arabs (and since 1967 with the 'Palestinians') since before the State of Israel gained its independence in 1948.

And he's mistaken about Fatah as well. Fatah is not 'salvaging what they can.' They are trying to take what they can get now and leave the rest for later. Anyone who thinks that the day after Israel - God forbid - signs a 'peace treaty' with Fatah it will all be over is living in an alternate reality.

Even Marshall himself seems to understand that in part because he ends with the following:

I was reminded of a conversation with a Hamas chief in Gaza last summer. I gave him the 1948, 1967 spiel and he said: 'You know what, you're talking about 60 years, I don't care if takes another 100 years, but we will win.' Khalid Mashaal would agree. That's his logic.

US to declare Switzerland 'non-neutral'?

The United States has asked to review a Swiss contract for the supply of natural gas from Iran to determine whether it violates American sanctions against the Islamist regime. If it does, Switzerland's neutral status as the representative of United States interests in Tehran and Havana may be in jeopardy.

A posting on the US Embassy Web site raises the question of whether neutral Switzerland's position as representative of American interests in Iran and Cuba could be affected.

"At this time, the Swiss have a mandate as our protecting power in Cuba and Iran," the Web site said in response to a "frequently asked question" on whether the Swiss role was "in jeopardy."

The Swiss have represented US interests in Havana since diplomatic relations with Cuba were broken nearly 50 years ago, and in Teheran since Iranian militants seized the US Embassy in 1979.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the embassy posting.

Washington, which has already objected to the deal as violating the spirit of UN sanctions against Iran, made a formal request to see the contract March 17, the US Embassy said on its Web site.

That doesn't sound like much of a punishment, but hopefully it's only the first step.

Where your taxes are going

The next time you see a report of how much money your government (and mine) are giving the 'Palestinian Authority,' consider where that money might be going:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday declared his willingness to patch up his differences with Hamas and called for international and Arab protection for the Palestinians who, he said, were being subjected to killings and theft of their land by Israel on a daily basis. [Israel has not taken any land in a LONG time. CiJ]

Addressing the 20th Arab summit in Damascus, Abbas condemned Israel for its various measures against the Palestinians, warning that such actions would sabotage the peace process.

The PLO supported the Yemeni initiative to resolve the Hamas-Fatah dispute and he was prepared to implement it unconditionally and immediately, Abbas said. He called on Hamas to end its "coup" in the Gaza Strip and to agree to hold early legislative and presidential elections as envisaged in the Yemeni plan.

"In the past, the Palestinian leadership managed to reach the Mecca agreement [with Hamas in February 2007] as a way to end the blockade on the Gaza Strip and unite the Palestinians," Abbas said. "In spite of this, Hamas carried out its military coup [in June 2007], which posed new challenges to us. The coup has split the Palestinian homeland and given Israel a weapon for political blackmail."

Abbas said the PA was continuing to channel funds to the Gaza Strip despite the Hamas takeover, and that 58 percent of its budget went there in the past year.

The PA was paying salaries to some 77,000 employees in the Gaza Strip, as compared to 73,000 in the West Bank, he said. The PA had also exempted the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from paying taxes and health fees, Abbas said.

By the way, Hamas denies that the PA is putting 58% of its budget into Gaza. No contradiction there. The PA is paying its own employees and not Hamas'.

Aren't you glad to hear that they're paying all those people to do nothing?

Rice expects deal by May 14; Shas buries its head in the sand

Channel 1 diplomatic correspondent Ayala Hasson reported on Sunday night that US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice expects Israel and the 'Palestinians' to reach a 'framework' for an agreement by May 14 - some six and a half weeks from now - when President Bush visits Israel for its 60th (and final?) Independence Day. Meanwhile, the 'ultra-Orthodox' Shas party continues to delude itself that it is making a difference in the government because Rice postponed her landing from 6:15 PM to 8:00 PM on Saturday night when the Sabbath ended at 7:35 PM in the Tel Aviv area (anyone want to bet that every single person at the airport to greet her desecrated the Sabbath anyway?).

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice believes that a framework for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians could be reached by the planned May 14 visit to Israel of US President George W. Bush, Channel 1 diplomatic correspondent Ayala Hasson reported Sunday.

Rice expressed this hope to a top Israeli leader Sunday when she met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayed. Rice's high expectations will put further pressure on the two sides, who were already meeting frequently in an effort to meet the November 4 deadline that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set at the Annapolis summit for reaching an agreement.

After a late visit to Amman Sunday night, Rice will meet with Olmert on Monday, followed by a tripartite meeting with the heads of the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, Livni and former Palestinian Authority prime minister Ahmed Qurei. US diplomatic officials said it was likely that she would return to Israel again before Bush's visit.

Barak learned his lesson from the last Rice visit, when she scolded him for not doing enough to ease the conditions of the Palestinians. This time, he came to their meeting armed with a 35-page document in English outlining the steps Israel would take.

...

Asked by the Israeli press whether she was satisfied with Barak's gestures, Rice said: "I would not characterize what we need or what I expect to hear as gestures. I really do think that what we need to do is to have meaningful progress toward a better life for the Palestinian people, for the economic viability for Palestinians, even as we move toward the establishment of a state." Barak's associates said they would accept additional oversight and that he had every intention of keeping his promises to Rice.

Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who also met with Rice, slammed Barak's new commitments to the Palestinians. He warned that Barak was making a mistake by entrusting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to safeguard Israeli security.

"I brought her information from security officials and intelligence indicating that Hamas could take over the West Bank and create what is essentially an Iranian base there," Netanyahu told reporters after a meeting with Rice that was set to take 15 minutes but lasted nearly an hour.

Netanyahu said he told Rice that if a declaration of principles were signed with the Palestinians on the basis of dividing Jerusalem and returning to pre-1967 borders, the Likud and the people of Israel would not accept it.

Are the Likud or the people of Israel even relevant anymore? That's debatable. A survey issued at the end of last week showed the Likud dropping to 26 seats if elections were held today. While that's much more than its current 12 seats, and would make it the largest party, it is much less than the 35 seats it polled a couple months ago. Labor and Kadima came in second and third in the current survey with another 35 seats between them. There are 120 MK's in the Knesset.

Rice aided Olmert's efforts to keep his coalition intact when she agreed to delay her arrival until after Shabbat.

Rice had intended to arrive at 6:15 p.m. Since Israel changed to summer time early Friday morning, that would have been before the end of the Sabbath.

An official in the Prime Minister's Office noticed the problem and alerted associates of Rice, who agreed to delay her arrival to 8 p.m. to avoid offending Shas.

"Our presence in the coalition has made such an impression on the government that we did not even have to interfere in order to make sure that the Sabbath would be respected," a Shas spokesman said. "This is just another reason why it is imperative for Shas to remain in the government."

Sunday, March 30, 2008

How is Fatah still infested with corruption? Let me count the ways!

In the weekend edition of the JPost, Khaled Abu Toameh recited some of the seemingly endless corruption cases with which 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen's 'good terrorists' from Fatah continue to be infected.

THE MOST serious scandal involves former PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, who currently heads the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel. According to a document released by PA ambassador to Romania, Adli Sadek, Qurei deposited $3 million of PLO funds into his private bank account.

Qurei was forced to publish a strong denial in the Palestinian media. While admitting that he did take the money, Qurei said he transferred the sum to a PLO bank account. He added that the $3m. were part of a $5m. investment that had been deposited in a bank account under Yasser Arafat's name.

Qurei has also been forced to deny charges that he and his sons own a cement factory that has been supplying concrete for the construction of Israel's West Bank security fence and new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Qurei is convinced that some of his rivals in Fatah are trying to discredit him so as to destroy his chances of emerging as potential successor to Abbas, whose term in office expires early next year. Sources close to Qurei have named former Fatah security commander Muhammad Dahlan and top PLO official Yasser Abed Rabbo as those behind the "smear campaign." Qurei has demanded that Fatah take disciplinary measures against the two, vowing to file libel suits against all those who try to damage his reputation.

Another scandal that erupted last weekend involves Rouhi Fattouh, former speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council who currently serves as Abbas's "personal representative and adviser."

Fattouh is suspected of exploiting his Israeli-issued VIP pass to smuggle thousands of cellular phones from Jordan into the West Bank. He was caught by Israeli custom officers at the Allenby Bridge. Denying any link to the phones that were found in his vehicle, Fattouh chose to blame his driver for the botched smuggling attempt.

However, Fattouh's denial did not leave a positive impression on his boss, who rushed to suspend him from his job pending a criminal investigation. Sources close to the investigation claim that other top Fatah leaders were part of a network that specialized in smuggling various goods across the border.

Also this week, the Fatah-dominated security forces announced that they had confiscated large shipments of expired medicine that had been illegally smuggled into the West Bank. Dozens of physicians, pharmacists and officials from the PA's Ministry of Health are currently being interrogated for their alleged role in the medicine scandal, which is believed to have resulted in the death of many patients.

As if all this were not enough, Abbas's prosecutor-general, Ahmed al-Mughni, announced this week that he had ordered an investigation against Khaled Salam, who for many years served as Arafat's "financial adviser."

The probe was launched following reports that the adviser was planning to invest at least $600m. in a tourist project in the resort town of Aqaba in Jordan. Although Salam does not hold any official position in the PA, he is known to have close relations with Abbas and many of his aides.

Video: Rice bowled over by Israeli 'gestures' to 'Palestinians'

At a trilateral meeting between the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Sunday, Israel announced an array of gestures to the Palestinians that included the establishment of a city or several neighborhoods near the West Bank city of Ramallah, to be financed by a Jordanian businessman, The establishment of Palestinian police stations in the B areas. The transfer of an additional 25 armored vehicles to the Palestinians. Barak announced that 700 Palestinian police officers would be allowed to enter Jenin, and that a checkpoint and 50 dirt roadblocks in the West Bank would also be removed.

The three were to have given a press conference but Fayyad's refusal to discuss in public the gestures made by Israel, ended up with Rice delivering a short statement, before the three left.

No Ehud, you still may not visit Dr. Rice's hotel room. But thanks for the good times.

This will make your day: KFC is now Halal

The mainstream media's strange notion of balance

In an interview with Richard Landes that was published late last week in the JPost, Landes explains why he decided to put his material on the Internet rather than convince the mainstream media to cover it (Hat Tip: Mrs. Carl in Jerusalem).

How do you know that these kind of scenes are staged?

By watching the rushes [raw footage]. So, for example, in one scene in the rushes - a scene we call "Molotov cocktail kid" - there is a Palestinian with red "blood" on his forehead, indicating he's got a head wound. And he's running along with no sign of pain whatsoever, then hands over what looks like a Molotov cocktail to a friend and runs into a crowd. Then, in the next frame, all of sudden he's being picked up and carried into an ambulance, all the while holding his head up high in spite of his supposed serious injury. It's really obvious that it's fake.

How do you have access to these rushes?

Getting it was connected to the al-Dura investigation [spear-headed by Israeli physicist Nahum Shahaf], which I started looking into partly as a medievalist. Even before I thought the footage might have been staged, I knew that it was being used as a blood libel. In other words, one Jew allegedly kills a gentile child in cold blood, and all Jews everywhere are responsible. That's the beginning of the wave of anti-Semitism that literally has marked the 21st century, and we have not seen the end of it. This is where cyberspace can play a crucial role.

How?

I made a documentary film called Pallywood, and tried to shop it around. I figured [the network] ABC would be interested in it as rivals of CBS whom we criticized [for bad coverage]. I was wrong. The guy at ABC said, "I don't know how much appetite there is for something like this."

Then I ran it by somebody else, who said, "We couldn't broadcast this unless it were balanced."

When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, "We'd have to have something showing how the Israelis also fake it."

So, I gave up. Remembering the outcome of the Dan Rather affair [involving a 60 Minutes II report - broadcast on September 8, 2004 - on George W. Bush's National Guard service, which was exposed by bloggers to have been bogus. The incident ended in Rather's resignation from CBS.], I decided to post Pallywood on the Web.

That was in the fall of 2005. By the summer of 2006, it had already been seen by a good 50,000-100,000 people.

Then, when the [June 9, 2006] Gaza beach incident occurred [in which a blast - killing eight Palestinians, seven from the same family - was attributed to IDF artillery shelling; a subsequent investigation proved this to be false], I immediately started getting letters asking me whether I thought this was an example of "Pallywood."

Saudis buying real estate in Tel Aviv

Businessmen from the Persian Gulf - mostly Saudis and Bahrainis - are buying real estate in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, which is part of the city of Tel Aviv.

Yedioth Ahronoth recently learned that Arab moguls, most likely of Saudi origin, as well as various other Palestinian entrepreneurs, have recently been purchasing great quantities of prime real-estate in the Ajami neighborhood right on Jaffa’s coastline.

The property involved is in a rare, prime location not 100 meters (328 feet) from the beach front.

The houses in question are neglected, some even scheduled for demolition, but their prime location affords them massive potential in the real estate market. In spite of growing demands for these homes, their owners, most of them impoverished, working-class individuals, refuse to sell their homes to Jewish entrepreneurs.

Now, however, they appear willing to sell these very same homes to wealthy tycoons from Arab nations who are willing to pay millions of dollars, in cash, for this prime real-estate.

Real estate prices all over the country have been soaring due to foreigners buying apartments. Meanwhile, there is a housing crunch for Israelis as many of those apartments sit empty most of the year and the government has imposed a building freeze in Judea and Samaria and - although they won't admit it - much of Jerusalem. For many years now, there has been talk of imposing a tax on absentee land owners. Clearly, now would be the time to do so.

Israel's dhimmi government bows before Condi Rice

There was another 'gesture' that Israel's government made today that did not come directly from 'Palestinian' defense minister Ehud Barak. Israel decided to postpone indefinitely cancel the opening of a new police station between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim. To understand the significance of this particular 'gesture,' it is important to know that Maaleh Adumim is just a few minutes east of Jerusalem and that it is a fairly large city (population approximately 32,000 as of 2006), that Maaleh Adumim is considered a 'settlement bloc' that Israel 'expects' to retain under any future 'peace settlement' with the 'Palestinians' and that it was widely assumed that Maaleh Adumim was one of the places Bush had in mind when he referred to 'changing realities' in Judea and Samaria in an April 2004 speech. If Israel intended to keep Maaleh Adumim, it would make no sense to turn over the small strip of land known as E-1 that is between Jerusalem and Maaleh Adumim to the 'Palestinians.' And yet, Rice is adamant that Israel not build there, and today, Israel bowed before her and canceled the opening of even a police station located on E-1.

In order to try to hide its dhimmitude, the Israeli government is variously claiming that the failure to open the police station is 'technical' and that it has 'unrelated' to Rice's presence in the region. But the government is referring to the 'delay' as 'indefinite' and it's pretty clear that means that it's not going to open in the foreseeable future.

I hope Condi didn't jump too high in shock when they kissed her bottom.

Ehud Barak aims to please

I'm trying to think of a proper metaphor for what 'Palestinian' defense minister Ehud Barak did in his meeting today with Condi Rice and Salam Fayad. Unfortunately, the metaphors I came up with to best describe it all involved graphic descriptions of the human body that I'd rather not put on this blog. So I decided to go with the title above and leave the more graphic descriptions to your imagination.

Barak (whom - you may note - is the only one smiling in the picture at top left) greeted Rice today with the news that Israel has decided to 'take the risk' and remove fifty roadblocks in the 'West Bank' to better allow terrorists to reach their intended targets. This very much pleased Condi Rice, who patted Barak's head and said that these new measures "will improve the daily lives of Palestinians and help make Israel secure." Even Barak himself knows that these measures will not make Israel secure.

But there's more. Barak agreed to further endanger the security of Israelis by giving the 'Palestinians' more 'security responsibility' for Judea and Samaria. Since having the 'Palestinian Authority' assume security responsibility for Israelis has worked so well in the past, Barak has decided to try it again. Given that Barak himself was the one who suffered from Arafat's rejectionism at Camp David, one can only wonder how Condi managed to charm him into making the same stupid mistakes again.

In its statement, the U.S. said Barak and Fayyad agreed Palestinian security forces in the West Bank must assume greater responsibility. Israel has complained that the Palestinian forces have not done enough to control militants.

The statement said the Palestinians would soon deploy additional security forces in the West Bank town of Jenin, a hotbed of militant activity, and work to prevent terror. Last week, Barak said he had agreed to let the Palestinians deploy some 600 Jordanian-trained officers in Jenin.

But wait, we're not done yet.

Among the new measures are plans to build new housing for Palestinians in 25 villages, connecting Palestinian villages to the Israeli power grid and an agreement by Israel to allow larger numbers of Palestinian laborers and businessmen to work inside Israel.

Let's leave the 'new housing' out of the picture for a moment, because it's actually worse than the quote above indicates. If the whole idea behind the 'security fence' and this government's policies in general is to 'separate' from the 'Palestinians,' why is it now suddenly connecting 'Palestinian' villages to Israel's electric grid? After all, that's been so successful in Gaza. Furthermore, why are we allowing larger numbers of 'Palestinian laborers and businessmen' to work inside Israel? So that they can slip terrorists in more easily? I could care less if the 'Palestinians' are 'starving' - they've had fifteen years to develop their own economy and they have thus far have refused to do so.

Ynet has learned that the series of gestures include the establishment of a city or several neighborhoods near the West Bank city of Ramallah, which would be financed by a Jordanian businessman.

The project would be built north of the town of al-Bireh and is aimed to be inhabited by tens of thousands of Palestinians in a bid to ease the housing shortage in the Ramallah area.

The city will be connected by a road in the Birzeit area, approved by the IDF. The plan is currently subject to the approval of the Civil Administration, in coordination with the Palestinians.

You have to understand what's left unsaid here. The Jewish cities and towns in Judea and Samaria cannot so much as put up a caravan without the world going bezerk with complaints that we are 'prejudicing the outcome of negotiations' (sorry I could not find a link to that story in the Israeli media), but they can put up entire cities for Arabs and that won't 'prejudice the outcome of negotiations'?

Give Barak credit: He did please Condi.

Condoleezza Rice was amazed by the Israeli gestures to the Palestinians, an Israeli source reported Sunday following a three-way meeting between the US secretary of state, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

...

During the meeting, the US secretary of state received a 35-page booklet in English, prepared by Barak's assistants in three days. Barak demanded that the booklet include a series of real gesturers [sic], which would manifest Israel's seriousness without harming the security of Israel's citizens.

But even Barak himself has admitted that such 'gestures' mean that Israel is taking a risk. How many Israelis will die - God forbid - so that Barak could get a smile and a handshake from Condi?In fact, there are even more 'gestures' than what I've told you about already.

What it means to be 'lightly wounded'

Whenever there is - God forbid - a terror attack, the wounded are generally classified as 'light,' 'moderate' and 'serious' with some even being classified 'critical.' Sometimes wounded are classified as between two of the categories.

But what do these categories mean? Gila at My Shrapnel doesn't tell us what her initial classification was, but I am going to guess that it was either 'light' or possibly 'light to moderate' given what she says about being in danger of losing her vision but not actually losing it. In this post, she reprints a journal entry that she wrote shortly after she was wounded in a terror attack in June 2002. Read about the traumas she goes through in those first few weeks and realize that for every person killed - God forbid - in a terror attack, there are at least as many Gila's and often many times more as many Gila's.

Multiply Gila's experience by a factor of about ten thousand (if not more), and you will have some idea of the impact of terror on this country in the last seven and a half years.

Israeli bus damaged by stone throwers just outside Jerusalem

You'd have to be a bit familiar with the names of towns in Judea and Samaria to understand the significance of this brief report:

A Israeli bus was damaged on Sunday when it was hit by stones thrown by Palestinians near the West Bank town of Kfar Hizma.

No one was wounded.

For those who don't know where 'Kfar Hizma' is, the same incident is reported with a bit more specificity at Arutz Sheva's site.

Palestinian Authority Arabs from the village of Hizme stoned an Israeli bus on Sunday morning near the entrance to Jerusalem. The bus sustained damage, but passengers were not hurt.

Hizme is an Arab village that abuts the road that leads to the 'Kvish Okef Ramallah' - the Ramallah bypass road - which is traversed by hundreds of Jews heading into Jerusalem from Samaria in general and on Sunday mornings in particular. (Sunday morning traffic here is like Monday morning traffic in much of the rest of the world). The village is so close to the Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Zev that the IDF checkpoint that you have to go through there is known as 'Machsom Hizme,' the Hizme roadblock. This area is considered relatively safe. In fact, the town of Adam, which is five minutes past Hizme into Samaria, no longer has bullet proof buses for every run because the area is considered 'safe' and the bullet proof buses are considered unnecessary.

And the Israeli government's response to this new escalation? You can guess:

Defense officials said Sunday that Israel would ease travel restrictions on PA Arabs as a “good-will gesture” despite ongoing attacks on Israeli motorists throughout Judea and Samaria. As part of the “gesture,” Israel plans to remove dozens of roadblocks and at least two checkpoints.

One of the checkpoints that is being removed is the one between Jericho and the Dead Sea. I wonder what will happen if - God forbid - there is a terror attack at Ein Gedi as a result.

Earnest Ignorance: My name is Rachel Corrie

At Solomonia, Martin Solomon (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person during my recent trip to Boston) went to see "My Name is Rachel Corrie" and writes a highly critical review which I urge you all to read in full. Martin has his head on straight:

The ISM is well on the record for intentionally seeking and putting in danger young foreigners, with a particular interest in Americans. They know the Israelis don't want to harm them, so they are useful tools in disrupting Israeli anti-terror operations, and if one should be hurt or killed, they and their handlers are geared up to use the death to maximum propaganda effect. Rachel's Palestinian handlers are wellversedinmanipulatingandsendingchildren to their deaths, they finally scored big by finally getting an American to do it. American theaters do nothing to help stop the conflict and everything to encourage more of the same by playing host to this story which contains no substance and a great deal of manipulation. Rachel Corrie is dead. We owe it to others to expose the manipulations and the cynicism that lead to what amounts to her assisted suicide. To write a play pretending that the real story is the cause she was maneuvered into dieing is perverse. Write instead about the terror masters who put here there. That's the real drama.

Is Israel better off with a left-wing government?

Professors Gidon Doron of Tel Aviv University and Maoz Rosenthal from Open University plan to release a study in the upcoming days showing that left-wing governments are less likely to destroy Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria than are right-wing governments. In a short summary of their research released over the weekend, the two argue that governments led by the Labor party have traditionally been too weak to destroy Jewish towns, even those the government considers illegal.

In contrast, they say, governments led by the Likud have the power to withdraw from territories and destroy Jewish towns. Parties further to the political right, such as Kach and Moledet, have only had a major political impact twice, they argued. Right-wing parties brought down governments in 1992 and 1999, they said.

I'm not sure why Kach is mentioned in the study, since Kach (the party of Rabbi Meir Kahane HY"D) has been banned from running for the Knesset since 1988. But in both 1992 and 1999, the 'far right' parties brought down 'right wing' governments (headed by Yitzchak Shamir and Bibi Netanyahu, respectively) because they were not seen as being ideologically pure enough. The result in 1992 was the Rabin-Peres government and Oslo. The result in 1999 was Ehud Barak, the flight from Lebanon, Camp David and hundreds of Israelis murdered by 'Palestinian' terrorists from 2000-04 (Barak himself was thrown out in 2001, but that Knesset remained in power until 2003 due to a quirk in the election law at that time).

The study is a bit deceiving. The truth is that even the Likud has not generally acted as a true right wing party. As I have noted previously on several occasions, many on the right have justified misgivings about the Likud and its current leader Binyamin Netanyahu. If the Likud were to regain power and act as a true right wing government, that would be better for the revenants than any left-led government. But the study is correct in the sense that when the 'right' seeks to destroy Jewish cities and towns, there is no meaningful opposition. For example, Ariel Sharon was still leading the Likud when he destroyed the Jewish cities and towns in Gaza and expelled all their Jewish inhabitants.

There's a lesson to be learned here for those who think that electing a Likud-led government is the answer to all of our problems. It's not. If it can be kept in line with a right-wing agenda, then a Likud government can be good for all of us. But if a Likud-led government is going to destroy Jewish cities and towns and make more 'gestures' to the 'Palestinians,' there will be no one to stop it.

Are the Arabs threatening war?

Get a load of this statement coming out of the Arab summit in Damascus:

Arab leaders attending the Arab Summit in Damascus this weekend made it clear that they see the “return” of millions of foreign Arabs to Israel as a critical part of any peace deal. Arabs claiming descent from those who fled Israel during the War of Independence would be granted Israeli citizenship under the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan, which also calls on Israel to immediately withdraw from all territories occupied by Jordan and Egypt until 1967, including much of Jerusalem.

Arab leaders confirmed their support for the Saudi plan on Saturday, but Syrian President Bashar Assad said that if Israel did not accept the plan in the near future, Arab governments could be forced to take alternative measures. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa suggested that Arab nations “may have to take painful positions” if talks with Israel did not show progress in the near future.

Libyan President Moammar Ghaddafi criticized the Saudi initiative as not requiring enough of Israel. “Palestine is not only the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,” he said. Ghaddafi called for a single state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River in which Arabs would be a majority.

They'd like to be threatening war. But given how many Arab countries did not show up to the summit, I'm not sure they can right now. Unless they have other allies (like the Russians) to help them.

The Israel of the Balkans?

I have discussed several times my fears regarding the implications for Israel of Kosovo being carved out of Serbian territory as an independent state. This article by Michael Totten in Commentary is making me think again.

Many in Kosovo are well aware that they have more in common with Israel than with the West Bank and Gaza. "Kosovars used to identify with the Palestinians because we Albanians are Muslims and Christians and we saw Serbia and Israel both as usurpers of land," a prominent Kosovar recent told journalist Stephen Schwartz. "Then we looked at a map and woke up. Israelis have a population of six million, their backs to the sea, and 300 million Arab enemies. Albanians have a total population of eight million, our backs to the sea, and 200 million Slav enemies. So why should we identify with the Arabs?"

“Many Palestinians also nurtured a similar sympathy for [genocidal Serbian dictator Slobodan] Milosevic,” Schwartz himself wrote in Middle East Quarterly. “What may be considered the most surrealistic gesture during the entire decade of recent Balkan wars occurred six months after NATO’s bombing of Serbia: on December 1, 1999, the Palestinian Authority (PA) invited Milosevic to Bethlehem to celebrate the Orthodox Christmas. News of this invitation, although more or less ignored in the West, was reported with banner headlines in the Balkans. An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said that if Milosevic accepted the invitation he would be arrested on arrival, since Israel, as a U.N. member, is obliged to fulfill arrest orders issued by The Hague tribunal, which had indicted him. The PA, not being a U.N. member, was under no such obligation. And the PA was not the only Palestinian element to vacillate over Kosovo. Earlier in 1999, the Palestinian Islamic extremist Hamas movement issued a statement, denouncing U.S. intervention to settle the Kosovo crisis as ‘hiding under the slogans of human rights to impose its power in the Balkans.’ Hamas thus echoed the allegations of Milosevic’s own media, as well as the Russians and various leftists worldwide.”

Palestinians weren’t the only Arabs to side with Milosevic against their fellow Muslims. Milosevic also had close ties to Saddam Hussein, as did Vojislav Koštunica’s democratic government that replaced him. Ed Bradley reported in 2003 that as much as three billion dollars worth of weapons, explosives, and equipment – including equipment that would bolster Iraq’s arsenal of Scud missiles – was shipped by the Serb-controlled Yugoslav arms export agency to Iraq before interception by Croatian authorities.

Israelis and Kosovars don’t merely line up on the same Western side geopolitically. They share a moral and ethical temperament with each other, one they also share with the Kurds of Iraq. All are ethnic minorities in their respective regions that wish to be left alone on their own land, untroubled by regional ethnic majorities that wish to suppress or eject them.

90 percent of Kosovars are ethnic Albanians. They lay no claim to proper Serbian land. They have no wish to seize Serbia’s capital Belgrade and ethnically cleanse it of Serbs, nor to rule over Serbs. They want sovereignty over themselves, not over others. They merely want what the other countries of the former Yugoslavia have managed to hammer out for themselves.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen and the Big Lie

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Holocaust-denying 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is an adherent of Goebbels and a promoter of another Big Lie. Today he repeated that lie at the sparsely attended but widely-reported Arab League Conference in Damascus, yet another bastion of 'human rights.'

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday called on Arab and international forces in the Palestinian territories to protect his people against Israeli attacks.

Abbas has called in the past for international peacekeepers in the Gaza Strip, but his call Saturday at the Arab Summit in Damascus marked the first time he has urged Arab countries to send forces.

In his speech at the summit, Abbas accused Israel of undermining the basis for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of attacking Gaza "brutally," killing innocent Palestinians.

He asked Arab countries to "think seriously of Arab and international protection for our people."

This from the man who loves Hamas so much that his forces threw Hamas terrorists from the roofs of Gaza last summer.

Why Israel's government is unaccountable

Many of you often ask why Israelis don't rise up and throw their government out. I have tried on several occasions to explain how difficult it has become to depose a sitting Israeli government and I have told you that I believe that most Israelis are too depressed about what's going on here to leave their homes and go out into the streets for useless demonstrations. Why are demonstrations useless? As Caroline Glick explains, the Israeli government sees itself as accountable only to foreign opinion and not to its own voters:

THE NOTION of running a campaign for an Israeli presidential pardon of Israeli citizens in the US is alarming for what it says about the Halamish supporters' perception of Israeli democracy. Specifically, as Datya Yitzhaki from Pidyon Shevuim who has spearheaded the campaign argues, they believe that domestic pressure will have no impact on either Israeli political leaders or on the justice system because in their view the Olmert-Livni-Barak government feels no need to account for its actions to Israeli citizens. Indeed, they contend that the only force that can hold the government and the legal system accountable is international pressure and fear of international condemnation.

Organizations like Women in Green and Pidyon Shevuim who are running the campaign cite as precedent the case of Tzvia Sariel. Sariel, 18, was arrested last December on assault charges. She was accused of attacking Arabs who entered her community of Eilon Moreh on December 4. Sariel was incarcerated for three and a half months.

On March 5, the allegedly assaulted Arabs appeared in Kfar Saba Magistrate Court and recanted their accusations against Sariel. One claimed that since he is illiterate, he had no idea what he was signing when he signed his complaint against her. Yet, despite the fact that the prosecution's case fell apart in front of her, trial judge Nava Bechor ordered a continuance until April 4 and sent Sariel back to prison for another month.

An outcry ensued and activists in the US began calling the embassy and the State Department. On March 19, Bechor dismissed charges against Sariel and sent her home. Her supporters believe that without their US campaign, Sariel would still be sitting in prison for a crime that she didn't commit.

Depressingly, activists fighting against civil rights abuses of right-wing opponents of government policies are probably on to something. Through their own actions, Israel's leaders show daily that they are willing to ignore strategic imperatives and their domestic political opponents. Their actions show that indeed, the only pressure that seems to get them to change course is international pressure.

What Caroline doesn't explain is why the Israeli government is so unaccountable to its own citizens. After all, our politicians lecture us endlessly about how we're a 'democracy' and about how the actions of 'right wing activists' damage Israel's 'democracy.' And the truth is that Israel is a democracy of sorts, but it's missing two major components: representative government and a balance of powers between the different branches of government.

Israel is missing representative government because no Israeli has a specific MK who is "my MK." When I want redress for my grievances against the government, I have no one to call. We vote for parties here and the actual people who sit in the Knesset are determined by the parties (in some cases, without primaries or any other sort of internal election). As a result, each MK is out only to protect his own interest within the party (or in the smaller parties that have no primaries, the interests of those people who sent him or her to the Knesset). The reason we have kept this system of government in which we vote for parties is because the larger parties fear that if we elected individual MK's, the leadership of the large parties (to whom I often refer as the branja) would lose control over the country. The small parties, who generally hold the balance of power, play along with this notion because they fear that if we went to a system of electing individual MK's, they would lose their power and their special interests would no longer be protected (and yes, that includes the religious parties). In the US they solved that problem through a bill of rights as part of the constitution. But to make a bill of rights that has teeth, you need more than a Supreme Court that's willing to declare laws unconstitutional: you need a Supreme Court that all elements in society see as fair on the whole even if they don't agree with every individual decision. And that's the second element.

The Supreme Court is very selective in its enforcement of rights and very biased in favor of its own world view. Many - maybe even most - people who disagree with the court's secular humanist, leftist view (which, as I have explained in the past, is self-perpetuating through the judicial selection process and all-encompassing by the abandonment of the concepts of standing and justiciability), don't feel the court gives them a fair shake. The largest demonstration in this country's history was not for or against the 'peace process' but against the 'Supreme Court' and it took place in Jerusalem in 1999 when Binyamin Netanyahu was in power and the left claimed there was no 'peace process.' The court has stepped into many vacuums created by the Knesset's inability to act and the Prime Ministers' (note that's plural) ineptitude, and the corrupt politicians are more than willing to have the court - which is unelected and whose members face nothing but retirement - face the heat on matters on which they are unwilling to do so. There is no balance of powers in Israel. The legislative and executive powers have largely been abrogated to the court and to world opinion.

Until Israel becomes a true democracy with a true representative government, none of these issues will be resolved. You will see more and more of Israeli political questions being played out in the world media and through the halls of the US congress and the governments of other countries that may choose to support Israel in the future. In the meantime, the next time someone asks you to call your congressman about the Halamish brothers (if you see Caroline Glick's article that I linked above, you will know who they are), please do so. Because no one here effectively can or will.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Jordanian opposition introduces bill to abrogate treaty with Israel

Ten opposition legislators, including six Islamists, have introduced a bill in the Jordanian parliament calling for abrogating the treaty with Israel that was signed in 1994 (Hat Tip: Nathan in Teaneck, New Jersey).

The treaty ``is unfair and hurts Jordanian, Palestinian and Arab interests,'' lawmaker Hamza Mansur said in an interview today in the capital, Amman. Mansur, among the Islamist legislators who presented the proposal yesterday in the lower house, heads the Islamic Action Front, a six-member bloc from the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein signed the treaty on Oct. 26, 1994. Jordan became the second Arab country to have a treaty with the Jewish state. Egypt and Israel signed a peace accord in 1979.

Israel ``proves every day that it is a source of evil in the region and it threatens the security of the Middle East and it commits crimes against the Palestinian people and, contrary to this, the United States continues to support it unconditionally and becomes a partner in the crimes of the Zionist entity,'' Mansur said.

There was no specific comment on the bill from Israel's government.

Everyone in this country assumes that treaties are forever. While I don't expect this legislation to pass - at least at this time (the Islamists are a small minority in Jordan's parliament), I would not rule it out at some point in the future.

Second, more explosive film on Islam coming

A Dutch news service is reporting that amidst all the outrage over FITNA, which was released last night, a second, more explosive video is due out on April 20. That video will feature the 'prophet' Mohamed as a pedophile.

While the cabinet is losing sleep over MP Geert Wilders' unpublished Koran film, a second film is due out on 20 April. Ehsan Jami plans to launch a cartoon film featuring the Prophet Mohammed as a paedophile.

Jami, born in Iran, announced that his film, The Life of Mohammed, is due for release on 20 April. On TV programme Netwerk, the young politician (22) showed a screen-shot in which the Prophet, with a visible erection, takes a child to a mosque to have sex. On the mosque is a swastika.

The fragment is a reference to the relationship between the prophet and the 9 year old Aisha as described in the Koran, according to Jami. His cartoon portrays all kinds of other perverse and violent verses, he added.

Rocket hits Kibbutz pre-school

A Kassam rocket fired by 'Palestinian' terrorists hit the wall of a pre-school of one of the Kibbutzim in the Sha'ar HaNegev district this morning. Fortunately, the teacher had just evacuated the children so no one was hurt. The teacher and a parent of one of the children suffered from shock, and the building was damaged.

Unfortunately, it's just a question of time until there's a major tragedy - God forbid - in the western Negev, which is where most of the rockets hit. It didn't have to be this way. And if the government doesn't respond - God forbid - it will only get worse.

How do they think they can get a court to do that?

Today, Muslim groups are going to court in The Netherlands to attempt to ban MP Geert Wilder's movie FITNA, which was posted on the Internet last night. Here's a video report and then I'll have a couple of comments:

First of all, as far as I know, LiveLeak is housed on servers in the US or UK. How does anyone think a Dutch court is going to order a server in the US or UK to take it down? They might be able to order a UK server to take it down because of the EU, but I doubt most US-based servers would listen. Then again, given that Network Solutions declined to run the film and took down Wilders' site, I suppose anything is possible.

More important, at this point, I am sure the film has been downloaded to dozens, if not hundreds of computers throughout the world. While I'm not much of techie, there are many other bloggers who are techies, and I am sure they would continue to host the movie. And no Dutch court can stop them.

Hezbullah training kids as young as 6

The terrorist organization Hezbullah is training children as young as six years old to become terrorists in training camps throughout Lebanon according to a report appearing in Time Magazine this week.

The camp trains some 200 children (boys and a few girls ages 6 to 18) about a dozen of whom live in the barracks full time, several having dropped out of school. Here they learn to use firearms, practice hand-to-hand combat, and are taught Palestinian nationalist ideology. In these photos, blindfolded young fighters disassemble and re-assmble assault rifles (above), and make presentations about the specifications and capabilities of various common weapons, including rocket propelled grenades (below) [I didn't reproduce the pictures - follow the link to see them. CiJ].

The mainstream Palestinian political parties in in Lebanese camps are more militant than their counterparts in Israel and the occupied territories, in part because they represent refugees. Since most Palestinians in Lebanon are descendants of those who fled during the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel, they are particularly concerned that their right to return to their lands and homes will be negotiated away or watered down in a peace settlement.

And the Israeli government thinks it's going to reach a compromise with these people? But wait, there's more:

The two phases in the development of a Hizballah fighter are like Boy Scouts and Boot Camp. During the first phase, Hizballah recruiters keep an eye out for young Shia Muslim students in both Hizballah-run schools and the national school system. They look for energetic kids, violent kids, and smart kids, from the age of seven into the late teens, and begin taking them on field trips and workshops where they are given a through ideological indoctrination, and then as they get older, a brief introduction to the AK-47 assault rifle.

Two important themes stick out: from the beginning, the training stresses the path to martyrdom, which is achieved through honesty, prayer, and combat. And from the start, Hizballah organizes its child recruits into the basic cellular structure of the organization.

...

Hizballah trainers constantly separate the wheat from the chaff. Those who pass all the ideological training tests, move on to learn the basics of warfare: weapons training and outdoor maneuvers for a total of at least 9 months, much of it in the Bekaa valley. All along the way, the trainers are on the lookout for those with special abilities. The lazy ones -- with the ability to sit for hours on end without getting bored -- are chosen as lookouts to watch Israeli troop movements; the brave ones are chosen for attacks, the smart ones are chosen for intelligence and security; and the smart and unpredictable ones -- the guys who don't look or act or behave at all like fighters -- get chosen for what is called reverse security, or counterintelligence.

When they graduate from military training, the new fighters are broken up and sent off to join cells out in the field or overseas alongside veterans. Of all the fighters, about one in ten is chose to be a commander, and goes to Iran for a few months of special training. The number of Hizballah fighters is a secret, but in a recent speech, the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, hinted that there are tens of thousands of them.

Though men make up the majority of Hizballah's frontline fighters, there are plenty of female fighters as well, mostly reservists. And even if don't carry weapons themselves, women are the ticking time bomb of Hizballah. They vote, and (especially if they are married to another member of the Resistance thanks to a Hizballah mating service) they'll give birth to the next generation of fighters.

I don't understand why anyone thinks that Israel can reach a 'peaceful settlement' with the 'Palestinians' that will not involve these people returning to Israel whether as residents or as terrorists (and probably as both). Imagine (and it is purely fantasy) that Israel reaches a 'peaceful settlement' with Fatah that either limits or bans the return of the 'refugees' to Israel. Does anyone believe that that Lebanon and Syria and even Jordan would not immediately open their borders and let these people go streaming across on suicide missions? Suppose a child aged 10 comes up to a group of IDF soldiers or a group of civilians with a bomb vest tied to him (an incident like this actually happened in Lebanon in the 1980's). Clearly the IDF would have no choice but to shoot him. Now, imagine pictures of that child being shot being broadcast around the world on YouTube and the like. Does anyone doubt what the public relations effect would be? (And I'm not even taking into account the possibility of a child with limited mental capacity being used as a suicide bomber - that's a whole separate ball of wax). Do you think I'm exaggerating? If so, read this.

The war between Israel and its neighbors is not going to end without there first being a decisive victory one way or the other. That's how World War I ended and that's how World War II ended. Israel won a decisive victory in 1967, but did not take - or was prevented from taking (probably a more accurate description, but the leadership at the time was also complicit) - the opportunity to impose terms of surrender on the Arabs. Until that happens, we will never have peace here. There is no 'settlement' that can be reached until the Arabs understand that Israel and the Jews are here to stay and that there is no going back to the homes they abandoned in 1948 and 1967.

One final point. The whole set of presumptions that underlies Oslo, the 'road map,' Annapolis and all of the 'peace making' efforts by the West in recent years is that the 1948 conflict has been settled, everyone has accepted that Israel is here to stay, the only dispute is about territory etc. What these articles should show you - especially those of you who have never been exposed to 'Palestinian refugees' living outside of Israel, Judea, Samaria and Gaza - is that NOTHING has been settled. The Arabs are still fighting the 1948 war. And it's not just the 'Palestinian refugees' who are fighting. The whole reason that countries like Lebanon and Syria leave their 'Palestinians' in 'refugee camps' and refuse to grant them the most basic rights as citizens is to make sure that they keep harboring resentment against Israel and that they keep training their children for war against Israel (and the West) on behalf of the Arab (and Muslim) 'nation.' And Israel and the US and all of the other Western countries continue to blindly fund UNRWA and other international organizations that perpetuate the fomenting of war against themselves.

Don't expect anyone in a position of power to wake up to this reality anytime soon either.

FITNA, the movie

As I am sure many of you have heard already, the movie FITNA by Dutch MP Geert Wilders was released this evening on LiveLeak. I have had very little luck watching it directly on LiveLeak and a bit more luck watching it on Little Green Footballs (with a high speed, broadband line, albeit not as fast as many of you have in the US, for example). So I am going to embed it here in the hope that it will make it easier for some of you to watch it. Here's a brief description of the movie from Al-AP:

Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders released a film critical of Islam on Thursday, setting verses of the Koran against a background of images from terrorist attacks.

The 15-minute film was posted on a Web site. Shortly afterward Dutch television channels rebroadcast segments of it.

The Dutch government had warned Wilders the film could spark violent protests in Islamic countries, like those two years ago after the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

"The film equates Islam with violence. We reject this," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said in a televised reaction.

"We...regret that Mr. Wilders has released this film. We believe it serves no other purpose than to cause offense."

Initially, Dutch television refused to broadcast it and Wilders had difficulty finding an Internet platform.

The film showed statements from radical clerics and cited Koranic verses interspersed with images from attacks, beginning with the September 11, 2001, assault in the United States, the 2004 attack in Spain, and the murder later in 2004 of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

It began and ended with one of the cartoons portraying Muhammad. Then there came the sound of a page being torn.

Subtitles assured the viewer it was a page from a telephone book, because "it's not up to me, but the Muslims to tear the hate-sowing pages out of the Koran."

After the release, Wilders told reporters he made the film, called Fitna, because "Islam and the Koran are dangers to the preservation of freedom in the Netherlands in the long term, and I have to warn people of that."

"It's five minutes before midnight and this is the last warning as far as I'm concerned," he said.

Early reactions to the film from were muted.

I should warn you that the film includes some graphic images including footage of people jumping out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 that have been suppressed by the mainstream media. The movie includes many references to Jews, but it is not just about Jews. It's about the danger that Islam poses to all of us.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

The real Reverend Jeremiah Wright

If you thought you'd seen it all from Barack Hussein Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, you're wrong. The following is footage that was not shown on American television. To say that the man hates America (and Jews) is an understatement. This video will give you an idea of just how much of an understatement that is. The video was apparently made shortly after 9/11. Wright's response: The chickens have come home to roost.

Jewish day school grad shills for Sharia at Harvard

When we last met 'distinguished law professor' Noah Feldman, he was taking his alma mater - and mine - to task in the pages of the New York Times for allegedly refusing to include his non-Jewish fiancee in the class picture that was taken for his class' 10th reunion. That turned out to be a fraud.

The photographer, Lenny Eisenberg, told The Jewish Week Monday that he had difficulty capturing as many as 60 reunion participants within a single frame. Eisenberg ended up taking several shots from one side, then the other, and several people on the far side — not just Feldman and his fiancée — happened to be out of the picture when it finally appeared in the newsletter.

At the time, The Jewish Week reported that Feldman was aware of what had actually happened.

Today, Hillel Stavis reports at FrontPageMagazine that Feldman is trying to pass a much more nefarious fraud off on the public: That Islamic Sharia law represents the highest state of “the rule of law.”

If this seems like a bizarre role for someone who attended the Orthodox Maimonides School near Boston, it is in line with the career trajectory of a very bright young man who wants to be preeminent among the severely compromised academics inhabiting the Middle East Studies Association. Thus, one week after his article, “Why Sharia?” was featured in the Times’ magazine, Feldman presented his position at Harvard’s “Interfaculty Initiative on Contemporary State and Society in the Islamic World.” The initiative previously had featured UCLA’s Khaled Abou el Fadl, who set the tone for the series with his opening statement that “Whether Sharia complies – or does not comply – with fundamental human rights is vacuous and irrelevant.” So much for a thousand years of western humanist thought and liberal jurisprudence.

What made Feldman’s lecture different from his magazine piece was what he left out of the latter. Obviously, any discussion of Sharia must include what informs the law at its heart – The Koran, Sunna and, to a lesser extent, Sira. Writing for the Times, he at least traced the roots of Sharia to the Koran. But that was as far as he would go. At Harvard, his analysis of Sharia was limited to “the rule of law” as interpreted by “scholars” producing an Islamic “constitution,” all of which is refined and perfected by a “balance of power” between rulers and scholars.

In Feldman’s revisionist account, the evolution of Islamic law echoes the Western experience and is compatible with it. To Feldman, Sharia evolves from “higher law” to “the rule of law” in a neat conflation of the secular with the holy that places the Islamic code alongside the West’s rigorously evolved concept of secular justice. Feldman suggests that the dreaded huddud laws of amputation and other draconian penalties for apostasy and blasphemy are mere “worldly commands,” notwithstanding the fact that they are drawn directly from the Koran. For example, Sura 5:33 prescribes amputation of limbs “on opposite sides,” a dreadful penalty that has found new life in some of the Sharia ruled lands today. Indeed, the fundamental nature of Sharia law is inextricably connected to divine revelation, a concept with which the West did away centuries ago. The fact that a Nigerian woman, Amina Lawal, was recently spared the Hadithic-inspired penalty of being stoned to death for adultery, had more to do with international outrage and pressure than any “nuanced” application of traditional Sharia law.

All this was utterly missing from Feldman’s lecture. There was much else, too, that the professor obscured.

This whole episode proves what was obvious to me before. When a Jew marries outside his faith, he is betraying that faith and he will continue to betray it and his people in many other ways that have nothing to do with his marriage. Shmuley Boteach was wrong when he defended Feldman last July. Feldman deserves to be ostracized.

About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com